John Van Oudenaren, <i>The Geopolitics of Culture: James Billington, The Library of Congress, and the Failed Quest for a New Russia</i>

In Russia nowadays, honest and competent officials and social activists face the prospect of arrest and imprisonment, but if, in the future, leaders take power in Moscow who value honesty and competence, this book should be required reading in Russian schools. John Van Oudenaren recounts the myriad ways that James Billington parlayed his unique mix of academic authority and administrative opportunities into some of the most successful efforts to collaborate with and support Russians seeking full participation in global epistemic and scholarly communities.An authority on Russian history and culture at Princeton University, Billington moved to Washington, DC, in 1973 to direct the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His appointment as the thirteenth Librarian of Congress (LoC) by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 came amid the excitement generated by Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika in the Soviet Union. Billington immediately sought new opportunities to support scholars, exchanges, and libraries. Van Oudenaren weaves together Billington's personal agendas and the impressive efforts by LoC staff to help their colleagues across the former Soviet Union, describing a multitude of projects supporting Russia's connections with former rivals.Van Oudenaren emphasizes three narratives: the broad range of LoC initiatives, the transition from geopolitical competition to the provision of assistance, and the tendency of cooperation to fluctuate with the “general trend of Russian policy” (p. 4). The LoC's initiatives included cultural and education projects during perestroika and a variety of far-reaching programs during the economically challenging 1990s in Russia, but the Library's efforts encountered ever greater strains as economic recovery in the 2000s coincided with Vladimir Putin's authoritarian restoration and anti-Western posture. Russia's seizure of Crimea and instigation of armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014–2015 marked a turning point, although some projects continued until Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in early 2022.LoC projects, funded almost entirely by U.S. sources (government and private), supported scholarship and exchanges throughout the 1990s. Van Oudenaren reinforces the work of scholars, including Andrea Graziosi, Gulnaz Sharifutdinova, Mark Kramer, and others, providing much needed balance to Putin's emphasis on foreign-imposed “collective trauma” during the Yeltsin years. Far from seeking to undermine Russia, the LoC and other North American, European, and international organizations funded programs to integrate Russian research and educational institutions into global networks.Devastating fires at two major Russian research libraries provide instructive bookends to Van Oudenaren's narrative. When the Academy of Sciences Library in Leningrad experienced a fire on 14 February 1988, the LoC rushed to assist in salvaging, preserving, and replacing material. When the huge library of Moscow's Institute of Scientific Information for the Social Sciences burned in January 2015, half of the more than 5 million books destroyed were the sole copies in Russia. The only thing the LoC could do was send a team to examine the damage six months later.The first chapter describes Billington's effort to facilitate Russia's transformation by having the LoC provide crucial information and analysis. None of Billington's dozen predecessors had studied or sought cooperative ventures with a foreign country. The timing of Billington's appointment was auspicious, combining his academic interests with the LoC's exceptional collection of Russian material, including many resources that were no longer available in Russia. Librarian Herbert Putnam's acquisition of the 80,000-volume Yudin collection in 1906 made the LoC one of the world's leading institutions for Russian studies. The LoC later added the U.S. State Department's Riga material, along with extensive U.S. Congressional Research Service acquisitions.Chapter 2 explains Billington's embrace of perestroika, highlighting his belief that most Sovietologists failed to include Russian culture and religion in their analysis. As director of the Wilson Center and then Librarian of Congress, Billington encouraged President Reagan to take Gorbachev's reforms seriously. Even before Billington was officially sworn in at the LoC in 1987, he joined a delegation of U.S. librarians to Moscow. Soon after taking over at the LoC, he traveled to Moscow with the Reagans for celebration of the millennium of Christianity in Russia. In 1991, he welcomed the renowned exiled Soviet poet Joseph Brodsky as a consultant in poetry to the LoC.In August 1991, Billington happened to be in Moscow for the Congress of Compatriots, allowing him to witness the attempted coup firsthand. After the Soviet Union dissolved, he urged the U.S. government to do more to aid Russia's newly independent polity. The LoC staff went into overdrive to preserve accounts of perestroika and garner the invaluable material being released from former Communist Party archives in Moscow.Chapters 3 and 4 cover the years under Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin. Van Oudenaren describes a broad array of LoC projects. Cooperation was extensive but was gradually hindered by geopolitical concerns as countries that had once been part of the Soviet bloc and the defunct USSR sought alignment with Western organizations. Other issues specific to libraries, such as the disputed Schneerson Chabad collection, also were an impediment. Billington played a major role advising President Bill Clinton on cultural and religious issues in Russia in the 1990s, as he had done in the 1980s with Reagan.Van Oudenaren emphasizes the mounting concerns about economic and political trajectories in Moscow during a “golden age” in LoC collaboration with Russian institutions that persisted into the early years under Russia's second president, Vladimir Putin. The LoC continued to provide expertise and financial support for Russian libraries while adding to its own collections, often through exchanges. Billington oversaw a growing program to improve mutual understanding.Chapter 5 focuses on the digital revolution and major collaborative programs that required the LoC to adjust to a different climate by the late 1990s and 2000s. The ambitious National Digital Library Program, the Meeting of Frontiers connecting the U.S. Pacific (especially Alaska) with Russian Siberia, and the Russian Leadership Program (RLP, precursor to “Open World”) encouraged interaction. From 1999 to 2021, RLP/Open World brought more than 20,000 Russians and 4,000 Ukrainians to the United States.Chapter 6 on Putin shows that by 2003 the shifting direction of Russian policy was apparent. Initially, some observers argued that the seizure of Vladimir Gusinskii's media empire in 2001 was merely an effort to limit criticism, but the high-profile arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky followed by the heavy-handed dismantling of Khodorkovsky's Yukos conglomerate, Russia's most successful private energy company, was far more ominous. Van Oudenaren claims that Billington believed Yeltsin chose Putin as his heir because “he was not a communist” (p. 202). Presumably, Billington was referring to the post-1991 Russian Communist Party. (Putin had of course been a member of the Soviet Communist Party from the mid-1970s until 1991.) Others suggest that Putin was chosen because he offered credible guarantees that Yeltsin and his family would be secure after leaving office (and indeed Putin lived up to this pledge).Despite growing tensions, Putin's second term was a period of continued interaction and exchanges. In October 2007, Billington had a private meeting with Putin and Vladimir Kozhin that included discussion of Russia's Presidential Library in St. Petersburg and the World Digital Library (WDL) being developed with cultural organizations of the United Nations. Work with Russia on the WDL was hindered by Putin's view that it should be a bilateral U.S.–Russia project, the antithesis of Billington's global concept. The most important Russian-language contributions to the WDL ended up coming from Ukraine.Billington met with Putin in the Kremlin again in March 2008, just before the presidential inauguration of Dmitrii Medvedev (who was filling in at Putin's behest for four years to comply with constitutional provisions). Putin wanted to discuss Billington's book Russia in Search of Itself as a way to think about Russian identity. The Russians were particularly interested in a project focusing on Russian “statehood.” Billington hoped that this would be a way to strengthen Russian democracy. The Russians were interested in acquiring technical help and copies of specific documents about Russia's statehood. Shortly after this meeting, Putin awarded Billington Russia's Order of Friendship.Successes were more limited in the final eight years of Billington's term. This more troubled time is the focus of Chapter 7, encompassing Medvedev's presidential term, Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, and Billington's retirement as Librarian in September 2015. Proponents of “stickiness” (persistence) of academic and scientific institutions will relish the continuing cooperation despite major difficulties. Open World lasted until 2021.Putin's third term in 2012 began with a “pivot to Asia” (p. 250). Yet most Russian academic and cultural institutions remained focused on their traditional partners in the West. The LoC continued to carry out and expand existing programs, but changes came quickly. Russian Federal Security Service agents began to examine the “American corners” at Russian institutions in 2012. Russia sent a team to the LoC seeking evidence that composer Sergei Rachmaninff had wished to be buried in Russia. (The only document they could find was a letter saying he wished to be buried in Switzerland.)Even as the political scene in Russia thwarted any further efforts at cooperation, unrelated developments in the United States eroded Billington's standing. Despite having been a leader in pushing for digital development at the LoC, he was no longer abreast of the rapid changes being wrought by smartphones and rapid innovations in cyberspace. The LoC was lagging in technical development, sparking congressional demand for new leadership.Billington (by then in his mid-80s) welcomed Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in January 2014 to the LoC to discuss celebrating the quadricentenary of the Romanov dynasty. The next month, Russia began its occupation and annexation of Crimea. Billington and the LoC continued to support some projects, but the relationship was increasingly difficult. He stepped down in 2015.Van Oudenaren's conclusion emphasizes accomplishments and lessons. Billington's efforts produced many “small deeds” with important long-term benefits for institutions and individuals. More ambitious projects faced inevitable conflicts between Billington's generous vision and Putin's suspicious and unwelcoming behavior. The thousands of individuals who participated in multiple exchanges now may constitute both major beneficiaries and the saddest victims.